Jagun Ghen sauntered toward Hweilan. He waved, and a gust of wind swept the red blade from her hand. She moaned but did not wake. Two baazuled followed behind their master.
Jagun Ghen stopped-no more than four paces away now-and looked down at Rhan. In the presence of so many demons, the purple light danced furiously along the Greatsword of Impiltur. Rhan could feel their power crackling against his skin. Jagun Ghen flicked his hand, almost as if he were shooing a fly, and Rhan felt the air around the blade tighten and try to rip the sword from his grasp.
No time to get any closer. It was now or never.
Rhan kept hold of the blade and lunged. He didn’t try to regain his feet, but instead kicked away from the wall, hit the ground, and rolled, bringing the sword around with all his strength toward the monster’s legs.
Jagun Ghen took to the air, and the black iron sliced under his feet. He came down, light and graceful as a dancer, and swept his hands toward the Razor Heart champion. Rhan braced himself for the battering to come. But what did come was much worse.
Air forced its way inside Rhan’s body, filling his lungs almost to bursting. He clamped his jaw shut, but still the air came in his nose. Pain ravaged him, pain like he had never known, and he couldn’t even scream. Every muscle in his body had locked up. A sound like stone cracking shot through Rhan’s right ear, and a moment later he felt a wet warmth leaking out. Lights danced before his eyes, bright and blinding-
And then his breath burst out of him. He fell to the stone, taking ragged breaths through his torn throat.
“I could pop you like a boil,” said Jagun Ghen.
Rhan could only hear out of his left ear. His hand went to the right side of his head and came away bloody. His empty hand. He had lost the sword.
“But you are a strong one. One of my brothers might find you a more suitable home than these other broken wretches. Yes?”
Rhan looked up. Jagun Ghen was walking away with Hweilan in his arms. He looked over his shoulder at the other baazuled.
“Gather her arrows-carefully!-and come to the circle. Bring enough bodies. And hurry. Time grows short.”
Another gale roared off the mountain, but rather than battering those in the courtyard, it coalesced around Jagun Ghen and Hweilan, lifting them up and out of sight.
Rhan heard a shuffling gait, and when he looked around, the dead hobgoblin was coming toward him. It saw him and said, “I like this one better.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Hweilan drifted down the dreamroad. Once, she managed to fight her way to consciousness, saw Jagun Ghen looking down at her through Menduarthis’s eyes, and the sheer power of his will pushed her back down again.
She saw the day her mother had taken her to see her father’s corpse. But there was no sound, only the overwhelming taste of blood in her mouth and the scent of smoke. Her father opened his eyes. They had gone black, save for a red ember that burned deep in their depths. Hweilan buried a stake in his chest, and the dream dissipated, like smoke in the breeze. No more taste of blood or smell of smoke, but in the far distance she heard music.
She saw the day Gleed had taught her to cleanse Nendawen’s weapons of the foul spirits within, how the little goblin capered around the sacred circle. But this time, he was on fire, his clothes and wispy hair an angry orange halo, his skin crisping and fuming, and the ravens came to claw his skin and gouge his flesh. But still he danced and laughed. This time, the music seemed closer, and Hweilan’s mind seized on it.
The dream faded, replaced by the sight of Nendawen, standing in the woods over the falls. He threw his spear, killing Hweilan’s friend and teacher. But when she turned, it wasn’t Ashiin but Hweilan’s mother, dying on the Master’s spear. Even as her mother fell, Hweilan heard the music, only this time there was meaning, not with words, but an understanding that revealed itself in her mind-
See the way …
Hweilan chased the song and beheld a place she had never seen before. Hills rolled in long swells like the ocean, miles long and covered in short grass of green and gold. Black rocks broke through the soil, and trees grew only in the valleys where the rivers gathered. Under a thick tangle of trees, she saw a tall man, his long mane of white hair bound in braids. His ears curved up in points, and he had the lean, angular features of an elf. He held a long spear, and with it he fought against another man, similar in build, but his hair was black, his skin dark as rich soil, and he held large, forklike weapons in each hand. As she drew closer, she saw they were antlers, their ends sharpened to needle points, and the white-haired elf’s skin already bore a mass of bloody tracks.
A flash of green from the depths of the trees drew her attention. Cloaked in forest shadows, a huge figure sat on a throne made from roots, branches, and leaves. A raven sat on one shoulder, an owl on the other. Serpents coiled around his legs, and spiders massed on his chest. Two wolves, each as large as a bear, lounged on either side of the throne. The skull of some great cat hid his features, but Hweilan recognized the gaze burning in the eye sockets. Nendaw-
No, said the music. See the way of it.
The dark figure on the throne wasn’t Nendawen. The body was different-large, yes, but lean and hairy as a northman. And the bone mask had no antlers. It was most definitely the skull of a tiger or lion. But the will behind those eyes … it was the Master of the Hunt. Of that, Hweilan had no doubt.
A cry broke her concentration, and when she looked back to the fight, the dark-haired man was on his knees, one of his weapons laying far out of reach, the other broken in his left hand. The white-haired elf held the point of his spear at his opponent’s throat. Tears streamed down the elf’s cheeks. His mouth moved as he spoke, as did the man’s at his feet. Hweilan could not hear the words, but she knew what they were saying. She and Ashiin had once had the same conversation.
The Master of the Hunt stood and pointed at the man on his knees. The elf screamed, turned, and threw the spear at the Master, who held his arms open. The spear plunged into his chest-
The vision faded, broken again by the music, but Hweilan knew the rest. The truth of it burned in her blood. The elf would drink the blood of the Master, eat of his sacred heart-and then the Master would kill his friend and teacher. The elf would burn his friend and use his skull as his own mask, joining their minds that they might hunt the enemy together. Hweilan did not see it, but she knew that mask had antlers. The Hand would wear it as he hunted the worlds for Jagun Ghen and his minions.
And after his last hunt in that world, when his enemy lay dead on the end of his spear, the Master would come to him. Burning in holy fire and the spirit within, the true Primal Master of the Hunt had hunted the darkness between the stars when Faerun was only a gathering of dust around its sun. His mind knew only that the hunt would take on the body of his Hand. And so it went, through world after world, time after time …
Jagun Ghen and his “brothers” were only a perversion and mockery of this sacred bond that had existed for millennia.
And at last Hweilan knew her fate. Gleed had tried to warn her-
When Jagun Ghen is beaten and his sickness purged from the worlds … what then? You think the Master will free you? Nendawen is the Hunter. He has always been the Hunter. He will always be the Hunter. It is his nature. His only … beingness. The Hunter does not free his prey.
Nendawen’s time had come, and the Master would need a new body to continue the hunt. He needed Hweilan.
But Jagun Ghen had her-his own “perfect vessel.” Thus the eternal circle would be broken. If Jagun Ghen took her, the Hunt would end, and the Destroyer would be free to roam the worlds, burning and consuming …